Hi, my son is 9 years old has been taking springboard diving lessons for the last 4 years. For the last year he's not progressing at all as he can't do the sommersault and yhe backward dives ( what they call blind dives) do you think he can overcome this or he's can't continue as a diver? He likes diving too much but his lack of progressing is depressing him. What would you advise
Thanks for your help in advance

Hi Amal...It sounds to me that your son has developed a fear of springboard diving (the blind dives) and in order to be successful as a diver, he's obviously going to have to overcome that fear. One way of doing this (and I've suggested it in the past to other parents who have experienced similar situations with their children in various sports) is to have your son begin visulaizing himself doing those blind dives, over and over again. If fact, if you should have some videotape of him doing those dives, I would recommend transferring them to a video and adding a musical sound track with lyrics that have specific meaning for him and have him watch the video over and over again...then, when he gets back into a swimming meet and is about to comptete, he would then listen to the music track on a Slony walkman or some other type of playback device and when he listens to the music it will re-create the images from the video tape. Let me say outright that this will defintely work; however, an important ingredient is your son't belief that it will work...because if he doesn't believe it will work, it won't.

Hope this has been of some help. Visualization is a powerful tool for athletes to use since the brain cannot differentiate between that which you actually experience and that which you visualize.

Hi Amal...It sounds to me that your son has developed a fear of springboard diving (the blind dives) and in order to be successful as a diver, he's obviously going to have to overcome that fear. One way of doing this (and I've suggested it in the past to other parents who have experienced similar situations with their children in various sports) is to have your son begin visualizing himself doing those blind dives, over and over again. If fact, if you should have some videotape of him doing those dives, I would recommend transferring them to a video and adding a musical sound track with lyrics that have specific meaning for him and have him watch the video over and over again as he listens to the music...then, when he gets back into a swimming meet and is about to compete, he would then listen to the music track on a Sony walkman or some other type of playback device and when he listens to the music it will re-create the images from the video tape. Let me say outright that this will defintely work; however, an important ingredient is your son't belief that it will work...because if he doesn't believe it will work, it won't.

Hope this has been of some help. Visualization is a powerful tool for athletes to use since the brain cannot differentiate between that which you actually experience and that which you visualize.

Thank you very much Mary for your reply. Unfortunatly we don't have any video of him doing these dives (he did not do them). What is your advice. Sorry if I'm asking too much
Thanks and looking forward to your reply
Amal